Cheat On Everything

i pride myself in my ability to cheat.

not in like a trying to do better on tests way or anything. i just believe that everyone can always get a leg up.

i hate math. i hate calculus. i don’t ever want to touch it with a fifty foot pole. the problem is, everyone else seems to insist i do.

every college i considered requires calculus to graduate.

i didn’t want to take it in high school and ruin my gpa now. i certainly don’t want to take it in college and ruin my gpa later. but as it turns out, like with most things in life, you can get by being just a little more clever.

you can apply for something known as “self-study.” take the exam, skip the class, get college credit.

the ap calculus bc exam is known for having an almost mythological curve. and yeah, the pass rate is high because you have to self select into a pool of students completing a calculus class, but the fact that all a student needs is about 37 percent for a 3 is laughable.

well, i took it. i didn’t study calculus for a second in the nine months i had leading up to the exam. should i have? probably. i passed anyway. somehow. i am no more mathematically qualified than most people; i got a low b in every math course since my sophomore year (yeah, i’m a humanities major how’d you know).

nine times out of ten, i should’ve failed that exam. i probably got lucky.

but colleges won’t rescind anybody over poor ap scores. coming out of my senior year, i had nothing to lose anyway (99 dollars) besides maybe my pride.

i threw my hat in the ring anyway. bruise your ego, it doesn’t matter. try everything.

cheating sounds bad. merriam-webster defines cheating as: to deprive of something valuable by the use of deceit or fraud.

i didn’t deprive anybody of anything.

by their definition, i didn't even cheat.

so what do you call it when you use the rules exactly as they're written and still come out ahead? i don't know. call it whatever you want. i’m calling it cheating. it sounds better than "self-study."

most people treat the hard path as the only way because nobody told them otherwise. i’m telling you otherwise. the exam has a curve, the room has a side door, the line has a shortcut.

don’t let anybody tell you that you aren’t cut out for an opportunity. you deserve everything. cheat on everything.